Second Week of Summer

Week two of summer has begun, and yesterday’s class yielded ten little ones.

Thankfully, my dear friend Abarrane offered to help me with my classes, so it was less like herding cats and more like actual ballet.
So much so that I ran out of things to do since I hadn’t gotten that far before and they were all eager. I need to reassess and come up with a more detailed and specific game plan for them, maybe even get into the specifics of what is proper technique rather than just trying to get them to do something. (Abarrane, you’re my hero.)

The great thing with this class is the parents aren’t shy about popping their heads in and getting after their kid. They let me try to get them into order, but if they keep goofing off, they get onto them. It’s a beautiful thing. I need to think of a clearer way to explain things to the ones that have English as their second language. I try to make things as visual as possible so they can grasp it a bit more, but in such a large class it’s a little more difficult. But I have hope. Also, you don’t realize how many big words you use until you say “(bear with me as I try to remember the word. Just know it did not sound like what she thought. Which made it even better.)” and the dancer thinks you said “cake.”

There’s never a dull moment.

I waited around for the Adult Ballet class and tried to utilize the empty studio to my advantage photo-wise, though I was sort of limited on what all I could get since I didn’t have that many surfaces to place my phone on. There’s something serene about sitting alone in an empty studio with the sunlight coming through the windows that settles your anxious heart.

Ms. Munro taught our class, and my friend Sara from Instep came to take a class. It was really great having another Instepper in there with me. It was like a collision of two worlds–two of my favorite worlds–in the best way possible. Sara hadn’t taken a class in two years, yet kept up really well. Ms. Munro seemed impressed with her, which was cool. And made me pretty proud.

Ms. Munro complimented me a few times in class for various things, and has been correcting my pique turns and the way my feet slide back into first in things like tendus and degages. I didn’t start to feel sick until the very end of class when we were doing jete’s across the floor, and even then it wasn’t that bad. The one time Ms. Munro saw my jete she seemed to see improvement, which made me feel good since my jete’s are rough. Past that, she was watching Sara, which I was a-okay with.

I sewed my new shoes, but hadn’t broken them in yet. I took some pictures in them to send to the lady for evaluation, but think I want to get some in my dead shoes too for comparison. Maybe I’ll do that Wednesday, or tonight if I can.

Before I know it, I’ll blink and summer classes will be over. It’s so much fun and I love it so much. I hope I can find a way to be able to still teach classes during the school year, while juggling tax season madness, which is bound to get more insane the more I learn.

If you follow my instagram, I’ll be posting some of the pictures I took with the empty studio here in the upcoming days.

(If you don’t, it’s anothernightatthebarreofficial
Long name. But the other one was already taken so I had to make it work. hehe)

I hope y’alls classes are going really well. I hope you’re learning and improving and remembering that feeling that makes you come alive when you’re there. I hope you never stop trying to be better, and always believe in yourself. And when you’re struggling to, let me know and I’ll give you a good pep talk.

❤